Plantar Fasciitis Treatments

When you have pain in your foot, it can make every step agony. One of the most common reasons for foot pain is plantar fasciitis. This is the inflammation of the thick connective ligament that runs along the bottom of your foot from your heel bone to the base of the toe bones. When this band sustains injury from overuse or other trauma, the body causes a rush of chemicals to the site to heal the injury. This can cause a great deal of pain, and it can be confusing as to how to treat it.

The best way to treat plantar fasciitis is with rest, but sometimes that is not possible or it does not solve the problem entirely. Ice and elevation are great short term fixes to help encourage the blood to move out of the foot. However, if you have a severe case of plantar fasciitis, you may have to resort to other measures for relief that only your doctor can provide.

Medications

You can take a few types of medications over the counter to help deal with your plantar fasciitis. The most helpful medication you can take is non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs. This includes the medications ibuprofen and naproxen. They help relieve the pain in your foot by decreasing the inflammatory response and pulling those chemicals away from your arch. These drugs only help to cover the pain. They don’t actually heal plantar fasciitis. The way to do that is through rest and removing the causative factor, such as ill-fitting shoes or carrying too much body weight.

For more advanced cases of this condition, steroids may be necessary. They also reduce inflammation in the area, but they are far more powerful and have side effects, such as weight gain. Your doctor can prescribe this medication for you by mouth, or it can be injected directly into your plantar fascia. This is a painful procedure, but it is often effective in helping with plantar fasciitis pain.

Exercises

You can perform exercises on your leg and foot to help relieve some of the pain. Some exercises are stretching exercises and some are strengthening. You can simply roll your foot over a tennis ball for 5 to 10 minutes to help relieve pain in your foot and mobilize the tissue to prevent permanent scarring of the plantar fascia. You should ice after this massage to help keep your plantar fascia from becoming inflamed again.

Stretch exercises include exercises you perform to release the tension in the muscles of the foot and leg. Even the hamstring, which is the muscle in the back of the thigh, can cause difficulty walking and lead to plantar fasciitis. A hamstring stretch, a calf stretch, and a gentle stretch of the arch of the foot will help you to ease pain and help with your gait. Do not stretch to the point of pain in the plantar fascia. If you feel any tugging or pain with any exercise, stop it immediately because it can cause further damage and inflammation.

Strength exercises try to build up the muscles of the foot and lower leg. Often, these exercises will come later in treatment as you attempt to improve your muscle function. By strengthening your muscles, you will allow your body to properly support the plantar fascia and improve your ability to stand or endure exercise. These exercises make you stronger and less likely to reinjure your plantar fascia. Some of these exercises include balling your toes up in a towel, walking on your toes, walking on your heels, and foot extensions with an exercise band.

Equipment

You can use a variety of equipment to help treat your plantar fasciitis. For instance, you can get a night splint from your doctor that will stretch out your calf and foot for the duration of the night. These splints look like boots, and they are effective in keeping your foot limber and able to handle the stresses of walking in the morning. You can also get compression bandages over the counter, such as ACE wraps, to compress the blood out of the foot and help reduce inflammation. This technique will provide support to the muscles and ligaments, as well, reducing pain.

One of the most popular forms of equipment therapy for plantar fasciitis is taping the foot. This is also known as low-dye taping, and it involves using athletic tape to span from the heel to the ball of the foot. By taping the affected foot, you help support the plantar fascia through its spring back motion in the sequence of walking. It takes the weight and the pressure off the foot and allows you to “rest while in motion” by providing concentrated support to the area.

Another type of equipment that can help your condition is shoes and shoe inserts. Often, the primary cause of the plantar fascia pain is ill-fitting shoes. When you wear a shoe with a strong arch support and support for over-pronation, you help to reduce the amount of stress on your tender ligament. Over-pronation is when your foot rolls in towards the other foot. Shoe inserts can also help with these problems because they can give you strong arch support in any shoe you choose. This is helpful for people who must wear formal shoes that hurt their feet.

Surgery

For plantar fasciitis that is not responding to any conservative treatments, you may need to consider surgery. Surgery for plantar fasciitis involves cutting the plantar fascia off from the heel to relieve the pain from the constant tension. This results in a fallen arch, and it is rarely done unless the pain does not respond to other measures. Sometimes the weakening of the arch of the foot can cause more problems and more pain than you had with the plantar fasciitis. For this reason, surgery for this condition remains controversial and extreme, at best. Think long before considering this step of treatment for plantar fasciitis, and be sure to fully exhaust the other treatments for this condition before you take such a daring step.

Start your heel pain treatment immediately

There are many factors the cause heel pain and plantar fasciitis. It is important to identify what are the factors (like body weight, shoes, muscle tightness ect..) that can cause your heel pain. Unfortunately no 2 people are the same so what has worked for some will not work for others. Fortunately we have put together an ebook that can assess your risk factors and guide you through your plantar heel pain and plantar fasciitis treatment today.

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